Over one hundred years
ago, psychologist William James delivered his Edinburgh Gifford Lectures on
“The Variety of Religious Experience” (TVORE). A committed empiricist, James
respectfully examined a wide variety of individual experiences, remaining (see
lecture XX, page 509, of the 1929 Random House edition), agnostic, if not
atheistic. It was not until six years later, in his book “A Pluralistic
Universe,” that he came to a different stance, as William Dean describes in
chapter 4 of his recent book, “The American Spiritual Culture.” (1)

David Sloan Wilson,
professor of biology and anthropology at Binghamton University, offers a
companion book to James, investigating religion using the tools of evolutionary
biology. Seeing all culture as an organism, he argues that individual religious
bodies within it are best analyzed as adaptive groups (Four other competing
models are discussed and rejected). Claiming that symbolic thought is what
separates humanity from the animal kingdom, he differentiates between two types
of realism, factual and practical. Science, he argues, has chosen factual
realism as its “god,” but evolution indicates thatfollowing practical realism, even though it may not be based on
“facts,” is often a superior course of action.

This book is heavy
reading (as is James’ TVORE), but it is well worth study. One need not agree
with Wilson’s assessment of the gospels as “poor history” to gain the same kind
of understanding of religious organizations as James provided of religious
experiences. Wilson’s conclusions appear on page 228:

“Those who regard
themselves as nonreligious often scorn the other-worldliness of religion as a
form of mental weakness. … This stance can itself be criticized for
misconstruing and cheapening a set of issues that deserves our most serious
attention …

“In the first place, much
religious belief is not detached from reality … . Rather, it is intimately
connected to reality by motivating behaviors that are adaptive in the real
world … . It is true that many religious beliefs are false as literal descriptions
of the real world, but this merely forces us to recognize two forms of realism;
a factual realism based on literal correspondence and a practical realism based
on behavioral adaptedness. An atheist historian who understood the real life of
Jesus but whose own life was a mess as a result of his beliefs would be
factually attached to and practically detached from reality.

“In
the second place, much religious belief does not represent a form of mental
weakness but rather the healthy functioning of the biologically and culturally
well-adapted human mind. Rationality is not the gold standard against which all
other forms of thought are to be judged. Adaptation is the gold standard
against which rationality must be judged, along with all other forms of
thought. Evolutionary biologists should be especially quick to grasp this point
because they appreciate that the well-adapted mind is ultimately an organ of
survival and reproduction. If there is a trade-off between the two forms of
realism, such that our beliefs can become more adaptive only by becoming
factually less true, then factual realism will be the loser every time (Wilson
1990). To paraphrase evolutionary psychologists, factual realists detached from
practical reality were not among our ancestors. It is the person who elevates
factual truth above practical truth who must be accused of mental weakness from
an evolutionary perspective.

“In the third place, disparaging the otherworldly
nature of religion presumes that nonreligious belief systems are more factually
realistic. It is true that nonreligious belief systems manage without the gods,
but they might still distort the facts of the real world … . We know that this
is the case for patriotic versions of history, which are as silly and weak-minded
for people of other nations as a given religion for people of other faiths.”

In Wilson’s
analysis, there is much of value. I recommend this book highly; it is another
“keeper.” Unlike James, Wilson did not include comments on his own religious
beliefs. I wish he had done so. Such a practice was more acceptable in years
past, but in this case the reader must speculate on his own.

(1) See my review of
Dean’s book in PSCF, September 2003, Vol 55, Number 3, page 207.